YxYY 001: 400 people say YES!

Soooo… this weekend my friends and I are putting on an event with a few hundred of our closest friends. No big deal. 😉

Scroll down for a bunch of rad photos I’ve snapped in our first 24 hours here in Palm Springs… but first I want to fill you in on the fun story about how Yes by Yes Yes came to be.

How YxYY came to be
It all started back in February when we started chatting about who was going to SxSW, and so many of us weren’t, for the first time in several years. Actually, Hillary posted this on Path (which eventually turned into the longest Path thread ever!):

For me, this year was the first time in 8(!) consecutive years I didn’t go; which quite frankly was somewhat welcome, given that SXSW 2012 was such an amazing success for me, assembling & coordinating hundreds of geeks to stay at the SFEmbassy Austin, producing/hosting CraftMakerCamp SXSW – my 2-day conference within a conference – AND winning Best in Show for my startup. Quite the feat, but no better way than to go out with a bang like that one!

So, while I was happy to take a break from the madness this year, the one thing I knew I would miss was my favorite part: connecting and catching up with all of my amazing friends from around the globe!

Several of us chimed in with similar stories, and then Ann Larie shared with us that years ago, while sitting on the patio of the Hotel San Jose during SXSW 2008, she & some friends were dreaming of an event where it wasn’t all about the conference, and the keynotes, and the schedules that pull you every which way every hour of every day… but instead it was all about what we really look forward to at SXSW every year: spending quality time with our amazing friends and meeting new interesting, creative minds from all over the world. Everyone said yes, and she said, “we could call it Yes by Yes Yes.”

We all said YES, and wouldn’t you know it 400 other
awesome people did too, and here we are!

The 5 of us – Ann Larie Valentine, Amy Muller, Hillary Hartley, Deb Schultz & myself – actually held our first YxYY Team planning meeting here in SF on March 12th, while SXSW was happening in Austin. Shortly after tickets went on sale on April 3rd (yes, only 3 weeks after our first meeting), and we sold out in 48 hours. Huzzah!

So here we are, about 4 months later, and today – literally finishing up this post from registration – we’re checking in hundreds of incredible thinkers, artists, creatives & geeks from all over the globe who said YES!, and are descending upon Ace Hotel Palm Springs for our awesome weekend-long experiment!!

We rented out the entire Ace Hotel for the weekend!

Welcome, Yaysayers!

Ace Hotel’s ‘Desert Facial’

Yay, all of our boxes arrived! The work begins…

Hillary, Ann Larie & Willo Say YES!

First night prep – 400 totebags are successfully filled!

First dip in the pool. Check! First rad piece of attendee-contributed awesomeness. Check!

Feeling the LOVE
So, before I finish this post up, I have to say how completely and totally amazing it has been collaborating with my YxYY co-creators, Ann Larie Valentine, Amy Muller, Hillary Hartley & Deb Schultz. It’s been truly awe-inspiring to see how our combined skills and experience has made us a total power team!! We’ve each contributed in all of our own unique ways, and I have the utmost love and respect for each & every one of them. <3

For all of you with us this weekend: THANK YOU FOR SAYING YES! This weekend is going to be *amazing* and we’re so thrilled you’re here, bringing all of your awesome ideas & realizing this crazy dream with us.

If you’re just tuning in and this sounds phenomenal to you, and you wish you were here… first of all, ME TOO! Second, we just added a subscribe box to the YxYY website, so sign up there if you want to be notified of future yes.

OK, second wave of arrivals are flooding in, so signing off for now. Cheers!

UPDATE: Want to see more photos? Check out the YxYY Flickr stream, where we’ve been pulling in everything… so much awesomeYESness!

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[…] Thomas called and told me to come to Palm Springs in July for an intriguing, unstructured event born of a conversation at SxSW a few years ago, entitled Yes by Yes Yes. I booked a ticket right there and then on my […]